Thirteen indigenous grandmothers from around the
world will arrive at the Vatican today (Wednesday, July 9) to ask the
pope to end more than five centuries of “power and domination” over
indigenous people.

“We carry this message for Pope Benedict XVI,
traveling with the spirits of our ancestors,” said the women in a
statement to the pope. “While praying at the Vatican for peace, we are
praying for all peoples. We are here at the Vatican, humbly, not as
representatives of indigenous nations, but as women of prayer.”

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous
Grandmothers will gather in St. Peter’s Square for prayer in the
morning. They also plan to deliver a 632-word statement to the pope
asking him to repeal three Christian-based doctrines of “discovery” and
“conquest” that set the foundation to claim land occupied by indigenous
people around the world.

The grandmothers said the documents — a series of
papal bulls written by the Catholic church beginning in the 1400s —
continue to affect indigenous peoples on all continents. The papal bulls
“set into motion perceptions and relationships based on power and
domination that are still the basis of legal systems all around the
globe,” according to the council.

The trip to Rome isn’t the grandmothers’ first
attempt to reach out to Vatican officials. In 2005, they asked Cardinal
Walter Kasper in a letter to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples.
But the Vatican has never publicly acknowledged that the church’s
documents laid the foundation to destroy indigenous cultures and land
bases, said Steven Newcomb, co-founder of the Indigenous Law Institute
in San Diego, Calif.

“Those documents provide a template and cornerstone
to federal Indian law and policy and the way it has been developed in
the United States and other nation states through the use of the
doctrine of Christian discovery and dominion,” Newcomb said.

The United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia
are among the countries whose treatment of indigenous peoples is
“directly tied to the papal bulls,” said Newcomb, author of “Pagans in
the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1823 declared the European
“discovery” of inhabited land “gave exclusive title to those who made
it.” In the United States, for example, Indians were allowed to remain
on the land once others discovered it, but Natives could not control it
without federal approval. Today, the Interior Department holds 55
million acres of Indian land “in trust” for American Indians, a system
that puts politicians and government bureaucrats in charge of managing
the land, including collecting money for any income earned from it.

Newcomb said if the pope were to revoke the papal
bulls, it would end a pattern of domination that continues to “plague
the planet to this day,” including genocide and ecological devastation.

Meanwhile, the council of grandmothers was aware they
might not be allowed to meet with the pope, who canceled a scheduled
public appearance today. Still, the women were prepared to perform and
participate in traditional ceremonies. “Setting a prayer down there will
pave the way for future dialogue,” said Janet Weber, an assistant to the
council.

The women’s council represents several regions from
around the world, including the mountains, deserts and rainforests of
Africa, Central America, Asia and North America.

The grandmothers from the United States are Agnes
Baker Pilgrim, of the Takelma Siletz in Grants Pass, Margaret Behan of
the Arapaho/Cheyenne of Montana, Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance and
Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance, both of Black Hills, S.D.

While in Rome, the grandmothers will be praying for
healing of the Earth, all its inhabitants and for the children of the
next seven generations. They hope to see an end to the “unprecedented
destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways
of life.”

The planet is in ecological “dire straits,” Newcomb
said. Ecosystems all over the world are being destroyed “because of the
dominating lifestyle that is predicated on greed and just wasting the
resources of the planet with no regard to future generations.”